what she held in her hand now, astride the crowd in the ballroom, was perhaps the only type of champagne that yvon had not sampled in years — a feat worth recognition in and of itself. in girl- and womanhood she had nursed of varieties produced within and without the capitol, those of cheap make and extravagant, some boasting fruity additions while others bragged of floral notes, and sipped from coupe or deliberately from bottle neck. le papillon, it would seem, knew her preferred nectar — and yet that which she raised to her lips now was unfamiliar, strange, and in some way unwelcome. the flute was filled with a label that, most certainly, she had supped from many times before — it was the standard maker for calandre’s celebratory events — and yet the overwhelming dissonance between this particular cup was the temperature. she could not remember the last time she had tasted warm champagne.
but yvon had never before had reason to turn the stem of a chalice absently rather than lift it, unwilling to blunt her wits with the nights progression. she had never warmed a glass between palm and flushed breast, held to her heart like the carved wooden figures of odeline hand-crafted and favoured by peasant women, while standing witness to impromptu execution. liquid or ephemeral, she had never forgotten to abandon a flat, lifeless thing in exchange for one crisp and bubbling.
she takes another pinched, reluctant draw before discarding the flute on a stone bannister, balanced in a way that preserved the glass now, but would find it shattered on the grounds below by nights end. she will be close enough to hear it when it does, no doubt — a girl in a music box, yvon does not stray far from her chosen pedestal. she remains posed in elegance and locked into endless motion, gaze turning about the room in subtle, smooth casts. the method used to coax out and anticipate her sister is, in the end, not dissimilar to that used to enchant nearby artists or would-be lovers.
and so yields the same result: from the crowd, a single body.
“gisele,” she reaches forth with pale hand, a mark upon the dark bodice of her gown. “as always, the cleverest sister — i can find no flaw in your account.” her fingers balances there, a pale smudge upon gisele’s dress as yvon leans forward to kiss either side of her sister’s mask in greeting. how cold those wooden cheeks behind the veil, even in the fiacre warmth. how her palms look for heat further down as she pulls away, fingers wrapping to the sleeve, the wrist. come now, have you a pulse? a heart? “i have been well enough indeed, and how fine a thing to see you in health once more. yet could we have found privacy even in solitude? as i hear it, even with your improvement still you reside alone these days. so intimately familiar are you with those four walls that certainly if i were to join, they would stand as a third party themselves.”
or perhaps contain the third party within them.
the appearance of her sister, so dark-shrouded, turns the trill of her heart into a demanding maestro who begs of her things that lovers and artists do: raise your voice, speak quicker, show me your flush. how grateful she is in this moment for her own trivial pursuits, the terrible skill with which she knows vapidity and debauchery both: to speak with both sides of the tongue was a skill perfected long ago. the crescents of spectators, too, grow two-pronged eyes. one lands on their companions, the other on the duval reunion.
watch, then, yvon’s fingers tighten along gisele’s wrists, her lips lifting. witness it all.
“but what terrible timing,” her mouth begins to smack of the champagne’s warm acid. damn that drink. “to have not found each other until after the bloody act. so much to talk of, and now however can we speak of anything else? an unusual way to mark a new age, do you not agree?”
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